Mom uses her kid to steal guy's parking spot

All that rudeness is educational. It makes me want to stay far away from such people.

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Kind of what I was thinking too. Have a queue by the storeā€™s exit where the cars can follow exiting shoppers to their cars. If you donā€™t want to queue, just find an empty spot. Alas, just wont work in the current set up, and like others mentioned the self driving cars are going to change this anyway.

I do love what you are saying about the single queue instead of multiple queues, and I was just thinking about this today- the people that see the single queue and will simply walk right up and get in the short register line acting like a mix of ā€œI dare you to say anythingā€ and ā€œIā€™m just minding my own businessā€. Last time I saw that happen and didnā€™t say something, I made it my goal to make it the last time I didnā€™t say something.

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There was also a woman on foot, ā€œholdingā€ that spot for the car. My assumption is that the driver had everyone in the car get out and attempt to hold a spot.
Is interesting how the bike came in to play however. Someone else in the thread claims a bike rental and a bike path are near by, and the women leaving the parking lot are wearing spandex active wear including one with a cycling jersey.

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Itā€™s crazy isnā€™t it? My head has been spinning on this one all day.

Seems like there is a gray area where laws and rules donā€™t cover, and people have vastly differing rules around social etiquette.
Are people justifying their shitty behavior?
Aggression vs complaisant?
Literal vs emotional?
How do bad politicians sleep at night- do they also believe the shit they are doing is just? Do they accept the first excuse they are told that justifies their behavior? Or do they even care and just spew whatever will get people to shut up?
What would a lawless country look like? Are we going to work together? Are we going to faction into splinters all believing our own vision of what is right and wrong and damn everyone else?
Aggression usually beats complaisant- we are born from a history of aggressive, conquering, raping, pillaging humanoids, itā€™s in our DNA, are/can we ever over come this? Are we always destined to have an asshole who wants to take more and abuse the system?

I have a ā€œfriendā€ of a friend that has a long explanation for why we donā€™t have to wait in queue when highway lanes are merging, and is perfectly happy (and self justified) for driving past a hundred cars all waiting their turn, while he drives to the front of the queue and merges among all of the angry staring and honking from people who have politely waited their turn.

Fun topic today Mark, thanks!

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I promise you itā€™s not. Itā€™s an invitation for whoever youā€™re waiting on to move to suddenly discover they urgently need to take a phone call or reorganize the contents of their console. Or even that they might want to visit a nearby prepaid cell phone store for no particular reason.

Itā€™s not even necessarily ā€œwe donā€™t to cede our awesome spot to someone whoā€™s pressuring us to get out quickly.ā€ Mostly the folks waiting like that also donā€™t leave enough space for the people exiting the parking space to confidently back out of it.

Iā€™m not going to risk backing up into another car or another human ā€¦ or even get myself wedged into a hard-to-escape scenario because someoneā€™s impatient and hasnā€™t allowed enough room.

Give enough space, and Iā€™ll get over my irritation and let the camper have my spot. Not like I needed it anymore. :laughing:

I rarely find myself in these situations at all anymore. I drive to the far end where the cars are sparse. Any time I would have saved by getting a closer spot is made up for by not running a slalom around the popular end of the parking lot. Iā€™m aware Iā€™m very fortunate in where I live and that Iā€™m not disabled yet. :sweat:

I would not live in a place where parking often entailed hard choices unless I could also give up driving. And, yes, Iā€™m also very fortunate to have a little leeway in deciding where I live. Not nearly enough to escape this hateful dangerous state of mine, though.

I wouldnā€™t encourage any of them. Except the folks giving up the space. Good job extricating yourself from a crappy situation. :sunny:

There seems to have been some planning involved in the bike scenario ā€¦ but not enough planning to avoid a situation where using a kid to camp a parking spot seemed like a good idea.

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The wearing of Spandex ā€œactivewearā€ is no guide as to whether the wearer was recently, nor is imminently, active.

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I shouldnā€™t have said ā€œin the USā€, but instead ā€œwhere I liveā€.

Around here, people getting ready to leave their space may indeed speed up a little if they see someone is waiting for their spot. In other circumstances, the people leaving will simply ignore the camper and go about their business. Either way, I do not expect them to hurry and Iā€™m assuming they are not expecting me to hurry either, I never felt any pressure.
If Iā€™m at my parked car but not actually leaving my spot yet, I will wave off the camper to let them know I am not leaving yet. I will also keep my foot off the brake so I donā€™t give a false signal to someone looking for a spot.
I see campers move out of the way for other traiffic, back up, etc. Usually when I see a camper in a bad spot is when other more aggressive campers are trying to creep in on the spot, so they are actually causing the problem.
When I am leaving a spot and I have a poorly parked camper blocking me, itā€™s 50/50 whether or not I call them an asshole or understand the larger situation and realize they would rather not be in this situation either, and I give them the benefit of the doubt.

Iā€™m in the midwest in the burbs, but my studio is downtown and I see a lot of the same behavior on the streets and crowded tiny lots during busy hours. 99% of the assholes I see anywhere are the aggressive people making life difficult for the polite people, or when aggression vs aggression occurs. Otherwise people get along just fine around here, and I seriously doubt my town is any more or less special than any other random midwest town.

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Yes exactly.

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Sorry but you let her get away with that crazy. Itā€™s your own fault - sheā€™s an innovator I guess.

And pay $15.

And be towed, then pay $300 to ransom your car back.

And pay $3.00 and also get there 20 minutes to 1.5 hours later than youā€™d expect.

And get run over because your city didnā€™t ever plan for bicycles, and thereā€™s nowhere to lock up your bike.

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Parking etiquette is first come, first dibs. These people are dicks, the person leaving not paying attention, and the guy who posted the video pretty pathetic for letting this get to him so much he felt compelled to post it on YouTube, but I guess everyone needs a hobby.

You know this how?

Dude, Iā€™m on like the last chapter! Just hold your horses, okay?

Joking aside, I do try to keep things moving when departing a busy parking lot, but if you ever honk at me for keeping my family safe, youā€™re gonna be waiting a while longer. Iā€™ll be sure to keep a Dr. Seuss book in the glove box just in case we ever meet :wink:

Maybe he was on a tight schedule? Out-waiting another Zax is a long process.

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First one to legally take possession of the spot gets it. Itā€™s really that simple. In this case the kid pulls an illegal move (pedestrian blocking traffic) but better to move on than get your car keyed.

What jumped out at me was that the poster didnā€™t park where they could easily pull in to the spot when it became available. Thatā€™s the biggest challenge: getting yourself into a position to swoop in cleanly.

Everybody involved here is an asshole and the world is a worse place for it. That said it was still an incredibly dickish thing to do in a busy parking lot.

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Which, letā€™s be honest, weā€™ve all done dickish things ourselves.

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Reminds me of the counting song.

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When there is a lane drop ā€œzippering inā€ at the end is the best possible way for everyone to behave. (Wasnā€™t there just something about this on boinboing just a couple of weeks ago?) What is the sense in everyone merging in a mile before hand? That makes zero sense and has been shown to make the wait longer and the backup longer for everyoneā€¦

That is not the same thing though as cutting in at the end when there is a lineup at an exit ramp.

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Looks like a reliable way to get your tires slashed and your paint keyed. What, is your little tween shit going to hang out there playing Paul Blart all afternoon? Not fucking likely.

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I re-watched the video because it didnā€™t make sense to me that the mom would have suddenly appeared out of nowhere at 0:10.

What I saw was that at 0:02-0:04 the mom can be seen already heading toward the spot, just before the camera-car swings to the left and heads toward it too. Each seems unaware that the other is heading there at the same time. Itā€™s no wonder that each apparently thought theyā€™d finally found a spot they could park in. I think itā€™s silly to say that she stole the spot from the camera-car, as it appears to me that they both were heading there at the exact same time.

To my way of thinking, the ā€œwrongā€ in this is that the person in the camera-car does not seem to think that a person who is on foot is an equally valid person :slight_smile:

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Oh, and, of course, everything that happened after they realized that they both were trying to get in to the same spot.

What should have happened? Each should have said Oh! Were you heading for this spot, too? No, no, YOU take it, I insist. Repeatedly. Until they both laughed, and one said Well we both canā€™t take it, so really, you take it, Iā€™ll find another, and went off and did just that.

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